During the fall semester of the year 2000, I took a beginner's
course in ceramics offered by the Fine and Performing Arts
Department of Raritan Valley Community College, which is located
in North Branch, NJ. I have been wanting to learn how to use a
potter's wheel for some time, but it turned out that only
handbuilding techniques are taught in the introductory course at
this school. The instructor, Dr. Bob Feder, told us on the first
night that the final exam would be to say something with clay.
Later he added that it should express an interpretation of a
social, economic or political issue of our time, and it could be
controversial. We were also required to use the three principal
handbuilding techniques we had studied, which are pinch, coil and
slab.

The Statement

It wasn't easy to come up with significant statement that I
thought I could express with clay. The subject that I settled on
is abortion, and the piece is supposed to resemble a life-size
fetus meditating in the half-lotus position. The top of it's head
is open, suggesting partial-birth abortion and also allowing the
piece to function as a small flower vase. The intended statement
is that a late-term fetus is a Buddha, the harming of which ranks
as a heinous crime in Buddhism.1

Construction

To get the proportions approximately right, I made prints from
a GIF movie that was derived from an MRI of a fetus in typical
head presentation.2 The head and body were pinch pots.
I fashioned hollow legs with a cylindrical slab technique, and
the arms and shoulders were made from a single coil. After
joining the head and the body, I made intersecting cuts in the
top of the head and peeled back the four flaps. After the
successful bisque firing, I dipped the upper half in a glaze
called Kui-Mei's Cream. Then I filled the piece with another
glaze called Ben's red and poured it out roughly to give the
appearance of a spill. (By the way, Ben's red is blood red when
wet.) Finally, I dipped the lower half in Kui-Mei's Cream and
wiped the bottom. After firing again, the red glaze spill became
a dark reddish brown that works plausibly as dried blood.

Is a Fetus Really a Buddha?

A fetus is arguably a Buddha if you agree that it is a
sentient being that doesn't (yet) discriminate between iteself
and the rest of the universe.

It might be argued that a fetus is not sentient, but that
leads to a dilemma. If sentience begins after birth, the argument
would also justify infanticide, which almost everyone thinks is
wrong. The pro-choice position would have to be that sentience
begins at exactly the same moment as birth, and that is not
reasonable.

It might also be argued that a fetus is sentient but does
discriminate between itself and the rest of the universe. In that
case, a fetus would be a normal suffering human being. Inflicting
additional suffering and death on an innocent human being is not
one of the 5 heinous crimes recognized in Buddhism, but it is
specifically prohibited by the Fifth Ammendment to the
Constitution of the United States.

Conclusion

C. Everett Koop3 said that very few
partial-birth abortions are medically necessary, and furthermore
some of the many fetuses aborted this way at around 26 weeks
would be viable. Such pregnancies could as well be
terminated by induced labor or Caesarian section, in which case
the fetus would become a baby with a chance to survive. Its
survival could be inconvenient, perhaps, but the choice in the
matter is literally in the attending physician's hands. Through
those hands pass nature's most exquiste creations, which are too
often trashed in modern medicine's least elegant procedure.

References

1. The Rider Encylopedia of Eastern Philosophy and
Religion, Random House, London 1989.

2. University College London and UCL Hospitals, Medical
Graphic and Imaging Group, Fetal Studies (see
http://www.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/mgi/fetal/index.htm).